Enrich the quality of life in Bulgarian villages

Hey, once again, dear Baba and Bulgarian villages supporter :)

When working in what people call “peripheries”, one should definitely first reframe and question the center-periphery narrative before heading to meaningful interaction on the field.

More than two years ago, building on our 9 years of experience working with communities at the Ideas Factory Association to cocreate opportunities in areas where ressources shifted away from due to hypercentralized systems, we came with an idea.

Embracing the experimental attitude that have been leading us forward since then, we asked ourselves and the communities we cocreate with: What if we renovate and re-socialize abondened spaces in depopulated villages in the poorest region in the EU and see it as a long term infrastructure for reviving the sense of “cultural habitat”?

What if we shift from seeing the economy as the first and only precondition for rurality to thrive? (And main reason to victimize underdeveloped regions)? What if we put culture and the right of radical imagination first?

Because - also now proven by our study with phd Diana Andreeva and also by a new research of the EC-we need spaces to imagine other futures, participate in culture, “consume” cultural services and products in order to be contributing, engaged citizens at all. Democracy desperately depends on culture - the possibilities for collective reflection, dialogue, confrontation even.

This is why we decided to create a network of Rural labs. Places where artists can reside, create with locals, experts missing in the village could exchange expertise for a stay, but mainly - the locals would have alone moved from abondenment to imagination.

Interestingly enough, Bulgaria has a cultural center almost in each and every village - more than 3700 nationwide (!), dating back to 19th century when the village became culturally autonomous and were in fact quite an emancipated entity from the central Ottoman administration. Unlike other parts of Europe where the process have been top-down (church or enlightened monarch), here culture and education were a grassroots process because of numerous historical reasons. Today those centers however are in desperate need of reinvention - in order to keep on being meaningful cultural mediators.
We work with them in co-programming and comanaging those new spaces with new meaning.

So, here it is - 6 renovated places for or Rural labs in the villages Pavolche, Oslen Krivodol, Lik, Koshava, Deleyna and Sinagovtsi, rebuilt 100% by the local people, owned by them and co-managed with us, co-financed BY ALL OF YOU! in order to make the bridge to creatives and experts. The first residency starts in August.

The first residents, staying at local homes and working with the community will be 12 artists and experets from different fields.

We are still developing the model and it would be great if you share ideas, examples of rural revitalization with intergenerational focus!

Thank you for your great support and trust,

see you soon,

Yanina and the Ideas Factory team